What My Mother Said
by BattyBigSister
Summary: It was just his luck. Of all the young genin teams he might have agreed to train his just had to be the most troublesome of them all. Between their deep rooted family secrets and deep seeded hatred of one another, Choji just wishes Shikamaru was there to help him.
1. Team Mates - 1,a

"You..." he breathed the word, his eyes half-lidded by pain. Sprawled against the rock, he was panting hard. Dank black hair spilled messily across his thin sweating face. One would have had to have known him well, and often, to spot the recently change in weight under the normally billowing cloak or the way his pale skin had become still more colourless with sickness. Even his partner, usually indivisible from his side, probably couldn't have guessed the difference as quickly as she saw it.

He, in turn, instantly spotted the increased swelling of her stomach as she emerged from the shade of the tiny wood. "I didn't expect to see you again," she whispered, her familiar space unusually serious as her woven straw slippers inched across the sandy soil towards him. The wind blew gently over the open landscape disturbing stray tufts of dishevelled hair, escaped from his ponytail, as he stared up at her. The deep furrows in his face lengthened as he squinted up against the bright sunlight into the dark folds of cheap heavy fabric that made up her kimono and shroud. It was almost impossible to see her face, even had he not been nearly blind.

"Hah," he whispered, derision clear on his face as she knelt beside him, still clothed in shadow in the rocky open plane,"You would not have come this far from your hiding place if you had not sensed my presence."

"I didn't expect you to want to see me," she clarified, ignoring his tone. Pale fingers, darkened from recently working with the earth, traced his face as she lent forward, stroking away the hair that had been stuck to his clammy skin, "You know everything I will want to say, though you will ignore all of it, and you know we will inevitably continue our old argument because of this."

"I didn't want to see you," he agreed, seizing her hand. Her heard her catch her breath as he trembled from the movement, but still he persisted in his clumsy caress, gently rubbing the curve of her wrist, "But I'm weakened. I underestimated the amount of time I have left. If I am to complete my task even the help of someone as weak as you will have to do."

"You make that sound _so_ complimentary," she sighed, sarcasm stoking her tone, but she pulled his questing fingers gently into her lap, stroking them affectionately, "What makes you think I'll help you?"

"You shouldn't," he acquiesced again, his voice seemed almost laced with pity as he said it. His dark eyes traced what little he could see of her face even with his poor vision, as his fingers groped and entwined themselves with hers. "But I know you will. You won't betray me – even if you disagree with me to the end."

This made her laugh. The disillusioned sound rang almost bitterly hollow, even in its obvious amusement. "So cruel, using my feelings – our feelings – like this," she sighed, still chuckling as she clutched his hand tightly in her own, "But you are right, of course." She paused, catching her breath and shaking her head beneath the heavy worn folds of fabric. One hand freed itself from its grip on his and adjusted the cloth slightly as she lent forwards."I suppose I must still love you, anata**(_1_)**." And she kissed him.

* * *

(1) – _anata_, _lit._ 'you', but is also often used as a term of address between lovers or by a wife to her husband.


	2. Team Mates - 1,b

_Smack!_ The chalk collided with the desk, breaking in two from the impact. The girl started upright involuntary, black hair flipping backwards from her face. Twin narrow slanted black eyes stared at the scattered sediment with obvious puzzlement, black eyebrows raised slightly as if in question, even though a tell-tale red mark remained visible on her cheek from where it had been pressed to the desk. It practically glowed against her pale skin and long straight jet-black hair, hanging in long straight lines against and even over her heart-shaped face.

"Class is still in session," Umino Iruka**(_1_)** snapped. His eyes, pinched by crows feet beneath his small half-moon glasses, were glaring daggers at his pupil, "Pay attention, Fumi-chan**(_2_)**." His once brown-black**(_3_)** hair was bow muted with grey and his general complexion had blanched a little with age, but he was still the same man, dressed in his old chuunin**(_4_)** uniform, with the same scar over his nose, standing at the front of the same large wood-lined classroom, teaching the same classes as he had decades before to entirely different students.

This particular girl glared straight back at him, visibly irritated by his admonition. Her head and shoulders moved back as she met his gaze, her thin lips pouting in clear derision. "I was~, sensei**(_5_)**," she informed him in a fake sing-song tone, unusual sounding for a girl who's natural voice was quite rough to begin with. Her classmates were staring all around, some shifting uneasily in their seats. None of them were seated near her despite the fact that she was only in the second row. There was an almost religious empty square of long wooden desk rows that sprang up around her at every lesson. Not only did no one ever sit next to her, even the spaces behind and in front of her were meticulously avoided. In all his years of teaching, Iruka could honestly say he had never met another child or adolescent who was quite like this one.

She yawned, long and luxuriously. Her arms, bare except for the blue-lined fabric of her white arm-guards, deliberately rolled in the empty air above her head. A set of perfect white teeth sparkled at him from across the classroom. Her head remained half hung back in the high petrol-blue turtle-neck of her cropped vest. She didn't even put a hand over her mouth to hide the gesture.

He closed his eyes, counting to ten to stop himself from throttling her. A vain throbbed with painful visibility on Umino Iruka's forehead; his shaking hands balling into fists at his sides. "Is that so," he murmured, the words slicing through the air with crystal clarity despite the low volume, "Then, since you're such a model student, why don't you answer the last question?"

She barely moved."Fourty-two minutes," she grunted, waving a hand as if in dismissal. Her eyes flicked over the large academy windows, staring out at the empty courtyard with a sigh.

He blinked, glancing from her to the board in sudden perplexity. "I beg your pardon?"

"Fourty-two minutes," she repeated, relaxing in her seat and letting her hands slap down onto the desk with a thump, "That's the time it would take to do that mission if you detonated a remote smoke bomb on the guards at the gate to draw them away. Then penetrated the building by melting the lock on a door or window with either a vial of acid or a fire jutsu**(_6_)**, disabled the upstairs guards with a sleeping gas grenade, broke into the daimyo**(_7_)**'s office and stole the scroll without going through any of this disguise and infiltration business. The rest is just distance over time." She smirked slightly, folding her arms on her desk in obvious satisfaction at the nonplussed look on her teacher's face.

He sighed deeply, his eyes briefly rolling heavenward before settling back on his pupil. "And you don't think that strategy is at all risky?" he intoned, moving for the slight gap between the ascending rows of desks. The pulsing vain now seemed to be affecting his entire eyebrow. "What if someone looked out of a window and spotted you? Raised the alarm? What then?" His hand struck the empty air lightly with each new point as he continued, "Even if you did succeed in the theft, the daimyo would know somebody broke into his office, wouldn't he? He would take steps to anticipate the fact that his enemies know of his plans. By the time the information reached our contractor it could well be out of date."

"But the mission would be completed," she snapped, glaring at him as she raised herself out of her seat, "And it would be faster than the other methods. You just need to be good enough to make it work." The other students shifted uncomfortably across the classroom, glancing nervously at their teacher. Only one boy in the front row, well tanned with an odd streak of red running through his spiky white hair, seemed relatively unperturbed as he studied Fumi's irate form and sucked lazily on the eraser end of a pencil.

Iruka lowered his eyebrows menacingly, his face hardening as he dug his fists into his waistline. "The speed would be irrelevant if the information was no longer useful."

"You didn't ask for it to be useful afterwards," she shot back, thumping her fists against the wood. Several of her classmates actually jumped. "You asked us to come up with strategies for the fastest way to get the information out of the building with basic academy skills. My way was it."

Iruka folded his arms."As a shinobi**(_8_)**," he reminded her in a low growl, adding extra emphasis on that last word, "You should always consider all the relevant factors – even the ones that are unmentioned – before you make your move."

"What does that even mean?" she gibed, rolling her eyes extra wide, "Nobody's physic. How could they know every possible thing that might happen in advance? There would always be something you didn't think of and then you'd have to think on your feet and change everything anyway." She waved her hands with the last sentence, as if trying to push away the rimes of failed tactics through the ages, as she straightened up again. "This isn't even a real mission," she sighed, her voice dropping a little as she grew moire thoughtful, "It's just some stupid academy test – and if those tests were so brilliant, we wouldn't need to spend our genin**(_9_)** years being tutored by jounin**(_10_)** to begin with." Her voice was growing in strength and speed again, her eyes locking furiously with her teacher's as she continued. He actually took a step back, retreating into the teacher's pit at the front of the classroom, as she leaned forwards, "You can never tell what will happen on the day, so who cares what would happen in real life? Anything could happen in real life. We were asked for the fastest way to get that scroll – on paper that_ is_ the fastest way."

"Nevertheless," he sighed. His gaze strayed briefly around the rows of desks, where dozens of young faces were looking back at him, loyally expecting him to shot down her argument, "The quiz is a pen and paper simulation of the sort of missions a shinobi might face. You are expected to answer them as if you were facing a real mission."

"Like you would know anything about real missions anyway," she grunted in disappointment, letting herself drop back onto the bench and staring at the blackboard rather than his face. One blue sandalled foot snuck upwards to rest on the very edge of her desk as she coiled her body in the tight space of her wooden bench. Her chin pressed over her knee onto the fabric of her beige cargo trousers, as her arms folded themselves like walls around her head. "You're just an academy teacher. The last time you ever faced a real mission my mum and dad still drank milk from baby bottles."

That did it. Iruka's face turned blood-red with rage. He advanced on her desk. Standing as close to her as he physically could, he glared down at her with his outstretched finger pointed at the door. "Get out!" he snarled, the words ground between clenched teeth.

She tilted her head, regarding him slyly out of the corner of her eye. "But I'm right, aren't I?"

"_OUT!_"

* * *

(1) – In English we virtually always use person's given name and then their surname. In Japanese names are traditionally ordered the other way (surnames first – or on top depending on the script you're using – and then the given name). Very often in translation Japanese names are switched to the English order, so 'Iruka Umino' instead of 'Umino, Iruka', but personally I find this can change the whole natural sound of the name and occasionally makes the name sound weird. ('Tsunade, Senju', for example, always sounds a little laboured to me, but 'Senju Tsunade' sounds fine.) This is pretty much why I always stick to the Japanese order when I'm writing Japanese names.

Of course, if we are giving a person's surname first then traditionally in English we are supposed to use a comma to show that such a switch has taken place, as I did with the examples in the previous paragraph – but frankly I find, while this is fine on a list, it is extremely distracting when reading a story, so I never do that either. Now you know.

(2) – '_-__chan'_, a suffix, suggesting endearment, used principally used on females, pets and very young children. Originally this was a cutesy version of 'san' (the polite form of address for an adult, like 'Mister' or 'Missus'), supposedly derived from little kids who couldn't pronounce the /s/ sound very well. Call a boy 'chan' though and you can expect a bloody nose.

(3) – For those of you googling pictures of Iruka and wondering what I'm going on about, Iruka's hair is actually black in the manga & brown in the anime. While I generally stick to the manga in the case of an outright clash, I nevertheless prefer to try to marry the two as much as possible... Besides most of you probably picture Iruka with brown hair in your head anyway, so just saying black would probably cause you to jarr out of your natural flow of reading. It certainly would me. So yeah, brown-black. Who knows, maybe Iruka was just standing under a very bright light for the entire anime? Especially in the scenes set at night.

(4) –_ 'chuunin'_, _lit._ 'middle ninja'. A Naruto term for a middle-ranked ninja. The (normal) ranks being genin, chuunin and jounin (low, middle and high ninja), although special ranks do exist as well. In the official translations they are referred to as 'junior', 'journeyman' and 'elite' if this is more familiar to you.

(5) – _'-sensei'_, a suffix used for teachers and some other professional people such as writers, doctors etc. Also the word for teacher, I believe.

(6) – _'jutsu'_, _lit._ 'technique' or 'skill'. In this case it refers to the special techniques and mystical arts ninjas use in _Naruto_.

(7) – _'daimyo'_, a type of Japanese feudal lord. While in Japanese history daimyo were at various points ordered below shoguns and the Emperor, in _Naruto_ this seems to refer solely to the supreme ruler of a country. There don't seem to be any higher authorities as the countries are not unified into a larger Empire of any sort.

The word is also occasionally spelled 'daimio', but the _Naruto_ translations stick universally to the version with 'y' and so do I.

(8) – _'shinobi'_, another word for ninja. Uses the first kanji character of the two combined to mean 'ninja'; the same character also means 'endure'.

(9) – _'genin'_, as mentioned above in note four, a 'low'-ranked or 'junior' ninja.

(10) – _'jounin'_, again, a 'high'-ranked or 'elite' ninja.


	3. Team Mates -1,c

It hurt. More than having to sit kneel the corridor with her hands on her head for an hour. More than the additional assignments she now had to complete. More than the extra months worth of chores she would be doing at the academy as punishment. This made her stomach churn with distaste and her face smart from the embarrassed red that flushed it.

Her father, her actual father, the ever formal unassailable unfaltering village hero, one of the two great Hokage**(**_**1**_**)**, was bowing in apology... and it was all for something _she _had done. She stared at his bent back, wishing she was somewhere else. Tears were pricking at her eyes and she fought to hide them even as the red and white of the Uchiha symbol started to swim against the dark blue of her father's haori**(**_**2**_**)**. Umino seemed almost as embarrassed as she was, because he rushed to wave away the gesture, mumbling that it was unnecessary – but still her father bowed.

"Really, Sasuke-sama**(**_**3**_**)**," the teacher sighed, rubbing his temples. The wrinkles were already starting to show in the deep troughs on his face, "All I want is for this behaviour to stop. She is probably one of the smartest kids in the year and she is meant to be graduating tomorrow. It doesn't help her to have such a lack of respect for her elders. It won't help her as a genin either – if it doesn't stop her getting that far."

They were alone in the classroom, standing in the deep tench-like area usually reserved for teachers. The long, high rows of pale wooden desks were empty. All the others had long since headed home. She would not have been her either if she had not been held back after school. Now here her father was, bowing, humbling himself for her sake, when she had been right to begin with. It wasn't fair.

He seemed to pause for a moment as he considered her teacher's words. "I understand," he murmured, his voice deep and husky as always, but still the sincerity and reserve carried through his tone. It hurt him to do this, she knew and that was why it hurt her too. Really, to call her father into the school... As far as she was concerned, Umino could have sunk no lower.

"Her attitude bothers everyone," her teacher continued, his tone serious as he stood there rubbing his hand over his face, "Even the other students. She's outcast, alone... even during break she hasn't had anyone to play with for years now. Really, Sasuke-sama, I should be the one apologising to you. I've tried everything I know of and still I cannot teach her. In all honesty, I worry about whether I'm doing the right thing by allowing her graduate."

"I will speak to her about this myself and see that she improves her behaviour," her father promised, bowing still lower, his face almost invisible beneath the stubborn black hair that stuck up in all directions at the back, "She will not cause further trouble. Again I apologise for my way-ward daughter and thank you for still allowing her to take the exam tomorrow."

Iruka shook his head, glancing out of the window. Bright sunlight was once again streaming through the tall windows promising what might be a lovely afternoon. "Sasuke-sama, really... I'm just worried about her more than anything."

Her father said nothing. Even from behind his back, Fumi could make out the way his fists clenched against the tied waist of his grey hakama**(**_**4**_**)**. She took a step forward, wanting to cut into their conversation with something... anything... to make them understand...

That was when Umino said it, the one thing that made her want to physically scream inside. The one thing that sent the tears of humiliation tumbling down her face, even as her shoulders shook with effort to keep them in. "Really, I don't understand it. I've never had this kind of trouble from Tategami-kun**(**_**5**_**)**."

Her father stiffened. Fumi stood still in shock. She didn't even notice she was staring at her father until his head slowly turned and his eyes met hers from the corner of his face. He was disappointed. She could tell.

"Papa..." the word left her mouth in a strangled whisper. Suddenly she found herself looking at her feet. Her fists unclenched. She felt sick and couldn't bring herself to say anything more.

Somewhere far off her father's voice was repeating his apologies to her teacher. She could feel his hand as it laid itself on her shoulder, the firm but gentle pressure reassuring but also undeniable as it guided her out through the door. They walked through the corridors of the school building in silence.

"You don't understand!" she burst out when the silence got too much for even her. They had reached the playground, the enclosed space that bordered the front of the academy building. She stared at the concrete below her feet, her fists shaking at her side.

Her father turned a step or two ahead of her. His dark eyes regarded her with silent surprise, which she could feel even though with her head turned downwards it was impossible to see. "They always set these same stupid questions," she gasped, "And the answers always come down to these stupid, these meaningless sayings... these..."

"Platitudes," her father provided the word without thinking, watching her internal battle with interest. He tilted his head, the corner of his mouth moving slightly in contemplation.

"Yes, platitudes," she agreed, running a hand through her hair as she recited, "'To shinobi the mission is absolute', 'a shinobi is someone who endures', 'a shinobi must see what's underneath the underneath'... You can't measure those things. You can't decide what's more underneath the underneath than something else. You can't chose one that's more right than the others. So no matter how you do the question, the best answer always just seems to be the one that's most pleasing to the teacher." Her breath came in a rush. She didn't know what to say or do, but the words seemed to come anyway, tumbling out of her mouth as the tears fell down her cheeks.

"I see," he replied gently, coming to kneel in from of her so that they were at eye-level. His hands rested on his clothed knees. He gazed at her with his dark eyes that were normally stern and hard, but at that moment his expression just seemed confused.

There had always been whispers, for as long as she could remember, about how he was technically too young to be a parent. The other mothers would mutter disparagingly about it whenever he had appeared with her at the playground or the school gates as a young child. Back then she had not really noticed, but as she grew older she began to see what they meant. There were difference between him and the fathers of her classmates: his skin was smoother, the dark hooded almond eyes less lined, his mouth still unblemished... Her mother was the same technically, but there was something about her father... The way he carried himself, those broad shoulders and the muscular back... His stance was always firm, unintimidated; his expression always calculated. This was a man who had risen to command an entire village and the respect of shinobi who were much older and more experienced than him. If there were those among them who thought he had been too young when he had his daughter, Fumi had learned quickly that there wasn't a single one who would have said so to his face.

"So really the best marks just go to the teacher's favourites, like Senju Tategami," she swallowed, still avoiding the chance to met his gaze even though he made it difficult not too, "People like me who no one likes – we don't even have a chance." She moved away, fiddling with edge of the black t-shirt she wore under her high-necked closed-fronted bolero top.

Her father breathed a long sigh. "I know Iruka-sensei, you know," he reminded her, taking her trembling hands in his, "He taught me too. I really doubt he just gives good marks to his favourites." Somewhere in the distance a couple of birds were busy singing loudly to one another. The familiar noise of the village rumbled quietly in the background. A constant reminder that however still the buildings around them looked, life was never far away in Konoha**(**_**6**_**)**.

"It doesn't matter if he doesn't mean to," she grumbled, staring at her smaller hands resting in his larger, more calloused ones, "The answers he likes best will always come from the people he likes better than me."

"So," he began, tightening his grip on her hands and moving his head so she was forced to look him in the eyes, "You want real measurable things, like rules and regulations with clear scales and goals, making it easier to see who is better without unfair advantages to those you think are favoured."

"Yes!" she nodded eagerly, her eyes lighting up.

He took a deep breath, his head pulling back little and his mouth hardening as he sort for the right words. "Well, you've learned about the shinobi rules, right?" he continued thoughtfully, "They say a shinobi who doesn't follow the rules is scum..."

She screwed up her face in disgust, pulling her hands back out of his. "That's just another platitude, tou-san**(**_**7,**__**8**_**)**," she sighed, folding her arms, "They say that and then they tell you all about the 'heroes' who broke the rules on missions and everything turned out great."

"You're right," he agreed, a half-smile on his face as he nodded, evidently pleased by her answer, "Sometimes on missions those rules all seem to go out of the window. They become useless. Do you know what helps a shinobi then?"

She tilted her head away from his, regarding him with quizzically-lowered eyebrows. "What?"

"The guiding principles in his heart," he explained, fixing her with a particularly piercing look, "The things he knows to be right or wrong. The things he loves and wants to protect no matter what."

Her jaw dropped; her face was a picture of sheer disgust. "That's..."

"Not quite," he tapped her nose with his finger, stilling her interruption, "You see those things you call platitudes are actually things we use to teach the heart our guiding principles... and if the entire village is guided by the same principles then no matter what the situation our shinobi will always work towards the same end – just as they do when they follow the same rules."

"So," she paused, letting her long hair fall forwards over her folded arms as she considered his words, "You're saying these platitudes are actually like rules for the heart? That learning about them is also important shinobi training?"

"Yes, exactly," he smiled in obvious relief, folding his arms over his bent knees as he remained crouched, "To be honest, it is also something I particularly lacked as a young shinobi. I hope you won't make the same mistakes."

Her lower lip pulled upwards, evidently unimpressed. "Then why do half of them seem to contradict each other?" she sighed, her eyes rolling as she did so, "Like a shinobi must see beneath the underneath and a shinobi must always follow the rules."

He shrugged, standing up, "Because life is contradictory."

Her cheeks raised upwards, pulling her mouth out of line as her eyebrows lowered. "That makes no sense at all," she snapped in disgust.

He cocked his head, shrugging again as he turned away, "Perhaps."

"Urgh! Tou-san!" She charged at his middle in a clumsy attack, swiping at his face in a punch that carried more frustration than anything.

He caught it before she could blink, pulling her up short by her wrist. She dangled helplessly, suspended by her arm, a skinny little waif next to her muscular father. Her sandalled feet kicked helplessly in mid-air as she frowned, aiming a sharp jab to his bicep with her free hand.

It didn't connect. Sasuke had plucked the incoming blow out of the air, leaving her hanging in the air like one of those plastic climbing monkey toys. She pulled her legs back, aiming a fierce double kick towards his groin, but he spun her sharply into the air over his head. Fumi whirled in mid air, limbs suddenly all over the place as she fought to regain her balance. Her father shot forward, seizing one flailing wrist again and brought her slamming down onto her knees, the arm twisted behind her in a painful lock-hold.

"You need to respect your elders, okay?" he admonished, his eyes growing serious as he leaned over her, lowered himself so that he was once again looking directly into her eyes, "It isn't just your teachers who worry about you. Iruka-sensei is actually a fine shinobi who has been on many missions for this village. You must trust that there is some logic in what he is trying to teach you. Promise me you'll do better."

She breathed a long, rather laboured, sigh, avoiding his eyes as she did so, "If you say so..." Her sandals ground against the concrete as she tried to buck up against his grip, but each futile jerk against his hold seemed only to cause him to have better control over her movements.

He raised his eyebrows, as he increased the weight on her arm, "If I say so?"

"Okay," she grunted, looking away as she found her torso pressed forward, flat against her legs which were already flattened so hard over her bent feet she felt sure her toes would break, "Fine. I'll try to be more respectful." Her body relaxed as she gave up the play fight, landing with a thumb on her behind as she yielded to the superior pressure.

"Thank you," he replied, releasing her and brushing down his hakama as he straightened upright again. A smirk traced his features as a new thought struck him. "Now come on. I need to keep you distracted for another hour," he confided, tapping his nose as he turned away, "Your mother is still busy preparing your big surprise meal in celebration for when you pass the exams tomorrow and she's running late because the hospital was packed again. Vaccination season, you know..." He waved a hand over his shoulder.

"Really?" she eyed his retreating back in suspicion, standing up and flexing her sore arm with some care, "What's going to happen if I don't pass?"

"We are going to have a big celebratory family meal to help you take your mind off the whole matter," he called, still heading towards the gates.

"Okay," she laughed and ran to catch up with him, pulling on his arm in impish delight, "Hey... Can we train with shuriken**(**_**9**_**)** now then?"

"Oh," a playful grin came over his face and to her surprise he shook his head, "I'm sorry, Fumi. Maybe.." He poked her forehead with two fingers and leaned in close to whisper, "Maybe we'll definitely have to do that now."

"O'tou-san!" she squawked, swiping at his hand in indignation as he laughed and poked her forehead again.

* * *

(1) – _Hokage_, _lit._ 'Fire Shadow'. The leader of the Ninja Village of Konoha in Naruto. There are counterparts (the Water-, Lightning-, Earth- and Wind Shadows or Mizu-, Rai-, Tsuchi- and Kagekage) in the other four major ninja villages in the world in which _Naruto_ is set. Also if you didn't know this already, then I should probably extend a warm welcome to the wonderful world of _Naruto_ as you must be _very_ new. _Naruto_ is a quite literally awe-inspiring piece of fiction. I hope you come to appreciate and love it as much as I do.

(2) – _Haori_, a light-weight Japanese cloth coat traditionally worn over kimono. In some manga and anime, most notably Bleach, haori can be very stylised to have very distinctive forms or functions, but in actual fact it is just that... a cloth coat worn with kimono.

(3) – '_-sama_', a suffix used for one's social superior to indicate respect.

(4) – _Ha__kama_, a form of skirt (often, especially when worn by men, divided like trousers... and therefore not actually a skirt anymore if you ask me but feel free to correct me) worn over kimono.

(5) – '_-kun_', a suffix used for a subordinate or to indicate friendship with a boy.

(6) – _Konoha_, or more correctly _Konohagakure no Sato_, _lit._ 'village hidden in leaves' or 'Hidden Leaf Village' in the English version. This is the official Ninja Village of the Land of Fire and Naruto's home. A Ninja village, the home base in which ninja live and are trained, is traditionally called a 'hidden village' even when, as in the case of most hidden villages in Naruto, everyone seems to know exactly where it is anyway. Konoha is also however a proper town with many civilian non-ninja residents.

(7) – _o'tou_ or _tou_ with a suffix; the term of address for one's father, a lot like 'dad' or something but, depending entirely on how it is used, not necessarily carrying the same automatic endearment. You can for example say "o'tou-sama" (with the 'o'-prefix and 'sama'-suffix) which is very formal and distant, whereas "tou-chan" would imply that you are very, very close indeed (& that the speaker is very young and probably female).

'Tou-san' as used here is a fairly common level of address, a lot like 'Dad' in English actually. The actual word for father (as in 'Sasuke is Fumi's father') is chichi.

(8) – '_-san_', a polite suffix to be attached to the end of one's name as curtsey. Just as we would say 'Mr X' or 'Ms X' in English, it is 'X-san' in Japanese.

(9) – _Shuriken_, also known as 'ninja stars' in English, a sort of many pointed throwing knife.


End file.
